System and method for provision of appliance control functionality to a smart device

ABSTRACT

A system for use in issuing commands to a plurality of appliances each of a specific one of a plurality of different appliance types includes a smart device adapted to transmit command communications and a plurality of low-energy consuming controllers each adapted to transmit a command to a one of the plurality of appliances of a specific one of the plurality of different appliance types in response to receipt of a command communication originating from the smart device.

RELATED APPLICATION INFORMATION

This application claims the benefit of and is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 16/391,575, filed Apr. 23, 2019, which applicationclaims the benefit of and is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.15/727,407, filed on Oct. 6, 2017, which application claims the benefitof and is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 15/364,620, filedon Nov. 30, 2016, which application claims the benefit of and is acontinuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/602,435, filed on Sep. 4,2012, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference intheir entirety.

BACKGROUND

Personal communication, productivity, and entertainment devices such ascellular phones, PDAs, portable email devices, tablet computers,e-books, hand-held games, portable media players, etc. (all referred tohereafter as “smart devices”) are known to include features such asgraphical user interfaces on color touch screens, Bluetooth and/or WiFicapability, etc. Increasingly, such smart devices also incorporatesupport for ancillary applications (hereafter referred to as “apps”) forexample calendars, email, maps and navigation, etc. Such ancillaryapplications may be pre-installed in a smart device or may be madeavailable for download by a user. Certain apps may comprise an abilityto issue commands to entertainment and other appliances, for example inconjunction with a GUI offering the features and functionality of auniversal remote control, as a user convenience in conjunction with a TVguide display to enable channel selection, etc.

In order to effect such control functionality, it is known in the art toprovision a smart device with hardware and/or firmware suitable for thegeneration of appliance command signals. Provision of such hardwareand/or firmware may be internal, i.e., built into a smart device; may beexternal, i.e., in the form of add-on attachments to a smart device; ormay be discrete, i.e., in the form of a separate self-contained unitwhich receives wireless signals from a smart device and converts them toappropriate appliance command transmissions. In particular, it is knownin the art to provide a single self-contained bridge device comprisingfor example a receiver, a processing/translation means, and atransmitter, which bridge device is capable of receiving genericappliance command requests from a smart device via, for example, an RFlink such as Bluetooth or WiFi and translating these command requestsinto appliance-recognizable transmissions, these transmissions usually(but not necessarily) taking the form of infrared (“IR”) encoded signalswhich may emulate the various target appliances' original equipmentremote controls. The availability of such bridge devices greatlyfacilitates the deployment of remote control apps for smart devices,since smart device apps intended for use in conjunction with thesebridge devices may then comprise a simple software GUI with norequirement for additional hardware or firmware installed onto or builtinto the smart device. Known bridge devices, for example such asdescribed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/406,601,entitled “System and Method for Appliance Control Via a PersonalCommunication or Entertainment Device,” or U.S. patent application Ser.No. 13/071,661, entitled “System and Method for Facilitating ApplianceControl Via a Smart Device,” both incorporated herein by reference intheir entirety, generally comprise a unitary “universal” bridge device,i.e., a device with access to a library of appliance command codes andtransmission format information suitable for issuing wireless commandsto multiple appliances of different type and manufacture. As describedin the above referenced U.S. Patent Applications, an app resident on asmart device may communicate with such a bridge device in order torequest the transmission of commands to various appliances, for examplea television set, a set top box, a DVD player, and/or an AV receiver.

While such unitary bridge devices are operative for the purposedescribed, certain disadvantages remain. For example, since a unitarybridge device may be required to originate command transmissions toseveral different appliances, it must be positioned appropriately,especially in those cases where infrared (“IR”) is the required commandtransmission medium and the transmitter accordingly must be locatedwithin line-of-sight of every appliance to be controlled. This mayconstrain a user's ability to, for example, place equipment in cabinetsbehind closed doors; situate the bridge device where it is inconspicuousand/or not subject to interference by curious children or visitors, etc.Furthermore, since satisfying these constraints may require placement ofa bridge device at some distance from the appliances to be controlled,for example on the opposite wall of a room, the design of such unitarybridge devices must provide for adequate transmission output power withthe resultant impact on battery life, device dimensions, power supplydesign, and the like.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to systems and methods for equipping asmart device with appliance command functionality, and in particular tothe provision of a discrete bridge device or series of bridge devicesfor receiving and converting appliance command requests from a smartdevice.

In order to overcome certain disadvantages of the prior art, inaccordance with the instant invention appliance control capability maybe provided to a smart device via multiple discrete bridge devices, onefor each appliance to be controlled, as opposed to a single unitarybridge device as known in the prior art. Since each bridge device isdedicated to servicing a specific appliance, physical placement of thesebridge devices may be proximate to the appliance to be controlled, forexample inside an equipment cabinet, on an equipment shelf, or evenattached to the face of an appliance. Furthermore, since theseindividual bridge devices may be purposed to be placed near theappliance to be controlled, a lower transmission output power may beemployed. Additionally, as each bridge device may be dedicated to aparticular appliance type, the size of the command code storage may bereduced, thus allowing use of a lower capacity microcontroller chip.When such a bridge device is further equipped with a low energyconsumption RF technology such as for example Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy(“LE”) for communication with an associated smart device, a compactpower source such as for example a so-called “button” or “coin” cellbattery may suffice to energize the bridge device. As a result of thesefactors, a bridge device designed in accordance with the teachings setforth below may be both inexpensive and extremely compact.

A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, propertiesand relationships of the invention will be obtained from the followingdetailed description and accompanying drawings which set forthillustrative embodiments and which are indicative of the various ways inwhich the principles of the invention may be employed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the various aspects of the invention,reference may be had to preferred embodiments shown in the attacheddrawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary prior art system in which a unitarybridge device may be utilized by a smart device to control severalappliances;

FIG. 2 illustrates an improvement to the exemplary system of FIG. 1 , inwhich multiple discrete bridge devices may be utilized by a smart deviceto control several appliances;

FIG. 3 illustrates in block diagram form an exemplary smart device whichmay be used in the exemplary systems of FIGS. 1 and 2 ;

FIG. 4 illustrates in block diagram form an exemplary discrete bridgedevice which may be used in the exemplary system of FIG. 2 ;

FIG. 5 illustrates in flow chart form a series of steps which may beperformed to configure a bridge device of FIG. 2 ;

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary remote control app GUI as may beimplemented on the smart device of FIG. 2 ; and

FIG. 7 illustrates in flow chart form a series of steps which may beperformed by the remote control app when issuing appliance commandsinitiated from interactions with the GUI of FIG. 6 .

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With reference to FIG. 1 , there is illustrated an exemplary systemaccording to the prior art in which an app installed on a smart device100 may be adapted to control various controllable appliances, such as atelevision 106, a cable set top box combined with a digital videorecorder (“DVR”) 110, a DVD player 112, and an AV receiver 108. Sincesuch remote control apps are well known, for the sake of brevity theoperation, features, and functions thereof will not be described indetail herein. Nevertheless, if a more complete understanding of thenature of such apps is desired, the interested reader may turn to, forexample, the before mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/406,601 or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/329,940, entitled“Graphical User Interface and Data Transfer Methods in a ControllingDevice,” of common ownership and incorporated herein by reference intheir entirety.

Transmission of commands to the appliances of FIG. 1 may be facilitatedby a bridge device 104 which may receive wireless signals 102, which arecaused to be transmitted via interaction with an app resident in smartphone 100, and convert these to appropriate infrared (“IR”) signals 114recognizable by the target appliances. While illustrated in the contextof a television 106, DVR 110, AV receiver 108, and DVD player 112, it isto be understood that controllable appliances may include, but need notbe limited to, televisions, VCRs, DVRs, DVD players, cable or satelliteconverter set-top boxes (“STBs”), amplifiers, CD players, game consoles,home lighting, drapery, fans, HVAC systems, thermostats, personalcomputers, etc. Also, while illustrated in the context of IR commandtransmissions, it will be appreciated that in general, commandtransmissions by bridge device 104 may take the form of any convenientIR, RF, hardwired, point-to-point, or networked protocol, as necessaryto cause the respective target appliances to perform the desiredoperational functions. Further, while wireless communications 102, 114,etc., between exemplary devices are illustrated herein as direct links,it should be appreciated that in some instances such communication maytake place via a local area network or personal area network, and assuch may involve various intermediary devices such as routers, accesspoints, etc. Since these items are not necessary for an understanding ofthe instant invention, they are omitted from the Figures for the sake ofclarity.

Turning now to FIG. 2 , an improved system may comprise a smart device100 adapted to issue commands to appliances 106,108,110,112 as before.However, in accordance with the teachings of this invention, eachappliance may be provisioned with a discrete single-purpose bridgedevice 206, 208, 210, 212. Each of the bridge devices 206 through 212may be adapted to be placed in close proximity to the appliance to whichit is to issue commands, and each bridge device may be configured with acommand code set appropriate to a single, specific type of appliance,e.g., bridge device 206 may be provisioned with a command code setappropriate for controlling only TV appliances, bridge device 208 may beprovisioned with a command code set appropriate for controlling only AVRappliances, bridge device 210 may be provisioned with a command code setappropriate for controlling only DVR appliances, and bridge device 212may be provisioned with a command code set appropriate for controllingonly DVD player appliances. Since bridge devices 206 through 212 arephysically in close proximity to their respective controlled appliances,IR signals 214 may be transmitted at a low power level.

With reference to FIG. 3 , as is known in the art, a smart device 100may include as needed for a particular application, processing means 300which may comprise both an application processing section 302 and anRF/DSP processing section 304; an LCD display 306; a keypad 308 whichmay comprise physical keys, touch keys overlaying LCD 306, or acombination thereof; a subscriber identification module (SIM) card 310;memory means 312 which may comprise ROM, RAM, Flash, or any combinationthereof; WiFi and/or Bluetooth wireless interface(s) 314; a wirelesstelephony interface 316; power management circuitry 318 with associatedbattery 320; a USB interface 322 and connector 324; an audio managementsystem 326 with associated microphone 328, speaker 330 and headphonejack 332; and various optional accessory features 338 such as a digitalcamera, GPS, accelerometer, etc.

With reference to FIG. 4 , for use in commanding the functionaloperation of an appliance, an exemplary bridge device 206 may include,as needed for a particular application, a processor 400 coupled tomemory means 404; receiver and/or transceiver circuitry 412 forcommunicating with a smart device 100 (preferably RF, such as WiFi,Zigbee, Bluetooth, etc., and in an exemplary embodiment Bluetooth 4.0Low Energy); transmission and/or transceiver circuitry 410 (e.g., IRand/or RF) for issuing commands to an appliance; a compact power source408 such as a coin or button cell battery or batteries; and clock andtimer logic 414 with associated crystal or resonator 416; all containedwith a compact housing suitable for mounting on or near to an applianceto be controlled. In a preferred embodiment, clock and timer logic 414may incorporate a low power timing device 418 such as, for example, ananopower ring oscillator as may be found in the MAXQ610 microprocessoravailable from Maxim Integrated Products, Inc.

As will be understood by those skilled in the art, portions of memorymeans 404 may include executable instructions (the bridge device programmemory) that are intended to be executed by the processor 400 to controlthe operation of the bridge device 206, as well as data which serves todefine the necessary control protocols and command values for use intransmitting command signals to a controllable appliance (collectively,the codeset data). In this manner, the processor 400 may be programmedto control the various electronic components within the bridge device206, e.g., to monitor activity on the communication circuit 412, tocause the transmission of signals, etc. As will be appreciated, memorymeans 404 may be comprised of any type of suitable media, such as ROM,FLASH, EEPROM, etc., and/or may take the form of a chip, a hard disk, amagnetic disk, an optical disk, or the like, in any combination. Stillfurther, it will be appreciated that some or all of the memory means 404may be physically incorporated within the same IC chip as themicroprocessor 400 (a so called “microcontroller”) and, as such, isshown separately in FIG. 4 only for the sake of clarity.

To cause the bridge device 206 to perform an action, the bridge device206 may be adapted to be responsive to events, such as receipt of acommunication from smart device 100. In response to an event,appropriate instructions within the program memory (hereafter the“bridge device operating program”) may be executed. For example, when areceived communication comprises a request to issue a command to acontrolled appliance, e.g., TV 106, the bridge device operating programmay cause to be retrieved from the codeset data stored in memory 404 acommand value and control protocol corresponding to the requestedfunction command and transmit that command to the intended targetappliance, e.g., TV 106, in a format recognizable by that appliance tothereby control one or more functional operations of that appliance.

As is known in the art, microcontroller 400 may be placed into aquiescent or “stop” mode by the bridge device operating program. When insuch a state, the current drawn from power source 408 may besubstantially reduced. By way of example, the aforementioned MAXQ610microcontroller may draw a nominal 3.75 mA when active (running at afull clock speed of 12 MHz, as determined by crystal 416) but only 0.2μA when in stop mode, i.e., power consumption is reduced by at leastfour orders of magnitude when the microcontroller is placed into stopmode. Resumption of processor activity from such a stop mode may betriggered by an external event such as a change in state of aninput/output port, etc., and in the case of the exemplary MAXQ610 andsimilar microcontrollers also by an internal event initiated by alow-speed, low-power, interval timer 418 which may be configured tocontinue running while the main microcontroller CPU is in stop mode.Such low-power interval timers typically operate at a much lower speedthan the primary microprocessor clock, via a secondary crystal orresonator or, as in the case of the exemplary MAXQ610, an internal ringoscillator. By way of example, the MAXQ610 internal “nanopower” ringoscillator operates at a nominal 8 KHz (as contrasted to the primaryclock rate of 12 MHz) and consumes only a nominal 40 nA.

In an exemplary embodiment, such a low-power interval timer may be usedto provide periodic wake-ups to monitor RF receiver 410 forcommunications from a smart device, as well as to reduce energyconsumption during transmission of appliance commands by bridge device206, as described for example in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser.No. 13/028,664 entitled “Systems and methods for providing a low powerremote control,” of common ownership and incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

It will be appreciated that a bridge device 206,208,210,212 may requireconfiguration when first introduced into a system such as illustrated inFIG. 2 . Such configuration may comprise, for example, theidentification, and in some embodiments downloading, of codeset dataappropriate for the control of the specific appliance brand and modelwith which the bridge device is to be associated. In order to configureassociated bridge devices 206,208,210,212 to command the functionaloperations of various types of appliances of multiple manufacturesand/or models, a remote control app resident in smart device 100 maydraw upon a library of command codes and protocol data, i.e., aso-called “universal” library of remote control codesets, as well knownin the art. Once identified, the specific codeset to which each of theto-be-controlled appliances is responsive may be provisioned to anassociated bridge device 206, 208, 210 or 212. As is known in the art,this may take the form of a pointer or index into a library of codesetspre-stored locally in the memory 404 of a bridge device, e.g. 206;downloading to a bridge device an individual codeset retrieved from alibrary stored locally in smart device memory 312, on a local PC orappliance such as STB 110 or TV 106 in direct or indirect communicationwith the bridge device, or from a library stored remotely at a headendor internet accessible server; an item-by-item download of individualcommands from a codeset retrieved from any of the above sources on anas-required basis; etc.; as appropriate for a given embodiment.

Turning now to FIG. 5 , there is illustrated by way of further examplean exemplary series of steps which may be performed by a smart deviceremote control app when configuring one or more of the bridge devicesdescribed herein. At step 500, the app may initially be placed into asetup mode. Entry into this mode may be as a result of a user actionsuch as activation of a setup icon or selection of an item from withinan app internal menu, may be automatic upon detection of anewly-introduced bridge device in the vicinity of the smart device, maybe from a smart device system configuration screen, or any other methodas appropriate for a particular embodiment. Once in the setup mode, atstep 502 the remote control app may first determine if any newlyintroduced bridge devices are present: if so at step 504 these device(s)may be interrogated to determine the specific appliance categorysupported by these devices (e.g., TV, AVR, DVR/STB, etc.) with thesupported devices being added to a listing of available appliancecontrollers to be presented to the user at step 506. In this context, itwill be appreciated that many networked or point-to-point wirelessprotocols may include a requirement that a peripheral such as theexemplary bridge device first be “paired” with the smart device (ordevices) with which it is to interact, for example via an exchange oftokens, numeric identities, passwords, keys, or the like, typically atthe smart device system configuration level. Since such pairing methodsare well known in the art and the exact method used is not material toan understanding of the instant invention, these will not be discussedin further detail herein.

At step 508, a user of the remote control may select an appliancecontroller (i.e., bridge device) to be configured from the list ofavailable appliance types which was displayed at step 506. If no furtherappliance controllers are to be configured, setup mode is terminated atstep 524. If an appliance controller is selected, at step 510 applianceidentification information may next be determined. As is known in theart, acquisition of such identification information may comprise userentry of a numeric device code and/or a brand and model number; scanninga bar code, QR code or RFID tag associated with an appliance, forexample as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,225,938, entitled “Universalremote control system with bar code setup,” U.S. Pat. No. 7,116,229,entitled “Programming a remote control device using RFID technology, orU.S. Pat. No. 7,969,514 entitled “System and method for simplified setupof a universal remote control;” deriving information from interactionwith the appliance itself, for example as described in U.S. Pat. No.6,781,518 entitled “Digital interconnect of entertainment equipment” orco-pending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 13/198,072 and 13/198,172,both entitled “System and Method for Configuring the Remote ControlFunctionality of a Portable Device;” capturing pictures of an applianceor its associated OEM remote control, for example as described in U.S.Pat. No. 7,653,212 entitled “System and method for using image data inconnection with configuring a universal controlling device;” or anyother suitable method. Since such methods to accomplish the acquisitionof appliance identification information are well known in the art, forthe sake of brevity these will not be further described herein. All ofthe above referenced U.S. Patents and U.S. Patent applications are ofcommon ownership and all are incorporated herein by reference in theirentirety.

Once appropriate appliance identification information has been acquired,at step 512 this data may be matched against an appliance command codedatabase in order to identity an appropriate codeset for use in issuingcommands to the appliance. Such matching may be performed locally by thesmart device resident remote control app; may be performed by anapplication resident on a local device such as a PC, STB, etc.; may beperformed at an Internet-accessible server; or a combination thereof; asappropriate for a particular embodiment. At step 514, if noidentification was possible an error message may be displayed at step520 and processing continues at step 506, i.e., the user is presentedwith the opportunity to configure further devices or to exit setup mode.If a codeset has been successfully identified, at step 516 this may beprovisioned to the associated bridge device using any of the methodsdescribed previously, and in some embodiments the user may be directedto test the codeset to verify that the target appliance responds asexpected. If it is determined at step 518 that the testing wassuccessful, processing continues at step 506. If testing wasunsuccessful, at step 522 it is determined if more than one possiblecodeset was identified. If so, a further codeset may be provisioned tothe bridge device and the test repeated. If no further identifiedcodesets remain, an error message may be displayed at step 520 andprocessing may continue at step 506, presenting the user with theopportunity to configure further devices or to exit setup mode.

With reference to FIG. 6 , by way of example a remote app resident onsmart device 100 of the system illustrated in FIG. 2 may supportactivity-based operation, e.g., wherein a unified GUI presented to auser may comprise a composite set of command functions drawn frommultiple appliances within the system according the functionalityrequired by the particular activity. For example, a “Watch movie”activity, once invoked by a user, may present a GUI 600 comprising afirst group of touch activated icons 602 representative of commandfunctions to be directed to DVD player 112, e.g., transport controlfunctions such as “play,” “pause,” “fast forward,” etc.; a second groupof touch activated icons 604 representative of command functions to bedirected to AV receiver 108, e.g., volume control functions such asvolume up/down and mute; and a third icon or group of icons representing“power on” commands for the appliances participating in this activity,e.g., TV 106, AV receiver 108, and DVD player 112. As is known in theart, the power on function may comprise individual command icons foreach appliance, or may comprise a single “all power” icon 606 asillustrated in the example presented in FIG. 6 , which, when activated,may execute a macro sequence to sequentially issue “power on” commandsto each of the appliances. For further detail regarding the definitionand set up of such activity-based remote control operation, theinterested reader may turn to for example U.S. Pat. No. 8,243,207,entitled “System and Method for Activity Based Configuration of anEntertainment System,” or to U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/632,927, entitled “System and Method for Simplified Activity BasedSetup of a Controlling Device,” both of common ownership and bothincorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Turning now to FIG. 7 , a series of steps performed by an exemplarysmart device remote control app in response to user activation 700 of anicon of GUI 600 of FIG. 6 may comprise: Initially, at step 702 thecommand function associated with the activated icon may be identified,for example “play” 608. Next, at step 704 the appliance type currentlyassigned to this function may be determined. In the illustrativeexample, this may be DVD player 112 in accordance with the currentactivity, e.g., “Watch movie.” By way of further explanation, selectionof a different activity, for example “Watch cable TV,” may result inassignment of a different appliance to this function, e.g. DVR 110. Oncethe assigned appliance type has been determined, at step 706 it may nextbe verified that a bridge device corresponding to the desired appliance,e.g., bridge device 212 in the current example, is present andconfigured, i.e., is paired and has been setup as described previouslyin conjunction with FIG. 5 . If not, processing may continue at step 712to present an error message to the user of the smart device. If thebridge device is present, at step 708 the desired command request, i.e.“play” in this example, may be forwarded to the appropriate bridgedevice 212 via RF link 102. Thereafter, at step 710 the remote controlapp of smart device 100 may wait for an acknowledgement that the commandrequest has been successfully received by the bridge device 212. If noacknowledgement or a negative acknowledgement is received, at step 712an error message may be presented to the smart device user.

Next, at step 714 it may be determined if the icon activation in step700 comprised a macro command. If not, or if it was a macro command butall functions in the macro sequence have been completed, processingterminates at step 716. If a macro sequence is underway, the nextsequential command request may be loaded at step 718, whereafterprocessing may continue at step 702 to cause the next command to beissued by an appropriate one of the bridge devices, e.g., 206 through212.

While various concepts have been described in detail, it will beappreciated by those skilled in the art that various modifications andalternatives to those concepts could be developed in light of theoverall teachings of the disclosure.

Further, while described in the context of functional modules andillustrated using block diagram format, it is to be understood that,unless otherwise stated to the contrary, one or more of the describedfunctions and/or features may be integrated in a single physical deviceand/or a software module, or one or more functions and/or features maybe implemented in separate physical devices or software modules. It willalso be appreciated that a detailed discussion of the actualimplementation of each module is not necessary for an enablingunderstanding of the invention. Rather, the actual implementation ofsuch modules would be well within the routine skill of an engineer,given the disclosure herein of the attributes, functionality, andinter-relationship of the various functional modules in the system.Therefore, a person skilled in the art, applying ordinary skill, will beable to practice the invention set forth in the claims without undueexperimentation. It will be additionally appreciated that the particularconcepts disclosed are meant to be illustrative only and not limiting asto the scope of the invention which is to be given the full breadth ofthe appended claims and any equivalents thereof.

All patents cited within this document are hereby incorporated byreference in their entirety.

What is claimed is:
 1. A non-transitory, computer-readable media havingstored thereon instruction wherein the instructions, when executed by aprocessing device of a smart device, cause the smart device to performsteps comprising: in response to the smart device being paired with eachof a plurality of bridge devices, wherein each of the bridge devices isdedicated to controlling functional operations of a one of a pluralityof appliances and each of the plurality of appliances is of a differenttype, using information received from each of the plurality of bridgedevices to cause a plurality of input elements to be automatically addedto a graphical user interface associated with the smart device; and inresponse to an activation of a one of the plurality of input elements,determining a type of appliance that is to perform a functionaloperation that is associated with the activated input element,identifying a one of the bridge devices with which the smart device ispaired that is dedicated to controlling functional operations of theappliance of the determined type, and transmitting by the smart devicefor reception by the identified one of the plurality of bridge devicesan instruction to have the appliance of the determined type perform thefunctional operation.
 2. The non-transitory, computer-readable media asrecited in claim 1, wherein the information received from each of theplurality of bridge devices comprises information that indicates a typeof appliance to which the one of the plurality of bridge devices isdedicated.
 3. The non-transitory, computer-readable media as recited inclaim 1, wherein the smart device and the plurality of bridge devicescommunicate via a low-energy RF communications channel.
 4. Thenon-transitory, computer-readable media as recited in claim 1, whereinthe instructions cause the smart device to cause a command code set foruse in controlling functional operations of the one of the plurality ofappliances to which the bridge device is dedicated to be provisioned toone or more of the plurality of bridge devices.
 5. The non-transitory,computer-readable media as recited in claim 4, wherein the command codeset is transmitted by the smart device to the one or more of theplurality of bridge devices.
 6. The non-transitory, computer-readablemedia as recited in claim 4, wherein a pointer to the command code setis transmitted by the smart device to the one or more of the pluralityof bridge devices.
 7. The non-transitory, computer-readable media asrecited in claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the smart device toindividually pair each of the bridge devices with the smart device. 8.The non-transitory, computer-readable media as recited in claim 1,wherein the instructions cause the smart device to use a devicediscovery process to pair each of the bridge devices with the smartdevice.
 9. The non-transitory, computer-readable media as recited inclaim 1, wherein the instructions cause the smart device to use aninterrogation process to obtain the information from each of theplurality of bridge devices.
 10. The non-transitory, computer-readablemedia as recite in claim 1, wherein the one of the plurality of inputelements corresponds to a functionality associated with anactivity-based operation.